Hacksaw: Padres have tough decision

Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton's One Man's Opinion column

Per the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “Something that is unusual or unexpected.”

Padres third baseman Chase Headley is one year away from free agency. You can look at all the stats until your eyes water, and you just cannot figure out what to do.

Neither can the Padres.

Which is the aberration? Chase Headley in 2012 or 2013? Indeed, what we have seen is what the dictionary describes — “unusual or unexpected.”

As the Baseball Winter Meetings get under way in Orlando, Fla., the Friars have an enormous decision to make. Which set of stats to believe, the breakout ones from his Silver Slugger-Gold Glove campaign in 2012, or the breakdown year of 2013, a season plagued by a sprained thumb and then torn knee cartilage that required surgery a few days after the final strikeout was recorded.

The catchphrase for the Padres in the hotel lobby this week is “Play in October.” Last year, as the Ron Fowler-O’Malley-Seidler group bought the team, their favorite phrase was “No more Fire sales.” You need solid, established players to play in October. Owners cannot build credibility if they keep getting rid of talented players who are due pay raises.

So here we are, decision time on Headley, a product of the Padres’ farm system. He’s a quiet leader, a throwback to Gashouse Gang baseball.

He had a breakout campaign in 2012, then a train wreck follow-up season. The burning questions sitting next to all the palm trees in that ritzy hotel in Orlando are this: Do you sign him to a multiyear deal and buy out free agency? Do you do a one-year deal and see which player is the real Headley? Do you trade him for a bundle of prospects and risk losing one of the few trustworthy clubhouse veterans?

Headley earned $3.4 million in the dominant 2012 campaign. He had a huge pay hike to $8.4 million for 2013, and then got hurt, first in the Cactus League in spring training, then late in the lost season. He never seemed right. I was told he had pain all summer in the thumb. He never let on about the bad wheel, but if you saw him in the clubhouse, he looked like he had been in a car wreck. The 2012 numbers of .286 average, 31 home runs, 115 RBIs were replaced by a 2013 ledger that read .250 batting average, 13 home runs, 50 RBIs.

It was hard to imagine Headley, who controlled all quadrants in the strike zone one year, staggering through stretches last summer that saw him hit .155 for a month, .320 another month, and .177 to finish it out. And the strikeouts were higher, too.

You close your eyes and you see Headley, dirt all over his uniform, diving for balls, running over catchers and stampeding on the base paths. Last year’s media guide cover had him with a clenched fist, eyes ablaze, storming to the dugout after a game-winning hit. That’s who he is and how he plays. He carries your flag, but how much is he worth right now?

If the Padres do not get an extension done, if they won’t commit or his agent takes him to free agency, he earns $10.4 million this coming season. If there are no talks about a multiyear package, then he probably gets dealt by the July 31 deadline. But if you pay the going rate now, a three-year extension, possible no-trade clause (he loves the city), then you take a gamble. Are you giving him $10-14 million per season over the next three summers, hoping you get the fire and brimstone of 2012 rather than the flameout disappointment of 2013?

The Padres have the leverage right now. Pay him his one-year deal, let him have a good season, then try to keep him, even at inflated prices.

Chase Headley, good player, good leader, good guy. Bronze star professional and gold star person. The Padres need to keep their good players.

But Headley needs to define, according to the dictionary, which was the “aberration” season of his career. One year from today we will know.